


Graduation Day

by sidana



Series: The Peter Black Stories [5]
Category: Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter - Laurell K. Hamilton
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-07
Updated: 2018-10-07
Packaged: 2019-07-27 14:45:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16221278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sidana/pseuds/sidana
Summary: Peter packs up for his first job on his own





	Graduation Day

Disclaimer: not my characters, not my universe, and I promise to put everyone back where I found them when I'm done with them

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Graduation Day

Peter rechecked the clothes spread over his bed. Everything there, from jeans and a windbreaker to his underwear to his socks, could be purchased from shopping malls and big box stores at five hundred different places across the country. His spare pair of work boots came from Wal-mart, as did all the bottles in his shaving kit, though he had replaced the fluid in after shave bottle with holy water. If he needed to pick up a sweatshirt with Totally Random University across the front of it when he got there, it would be easy enough to do. But for now, the contents of his duffle bag were going to be as generic and untraceable as possible. He checked the bag itself to make sure it was as clean as he could make it, then began to pack everything up.

"Peter," Ted said as he knocked on his bedroom door.

He glanced around briefly to make sure there wasn't anything he needed to hide.

"Come on in," he said. Ted walked in as he finished folding a shirt. He paused with the packing, and sat down on a clear spot on the bed. "Let me guess, Mom sent you to talk to me."

"She did. She knows you'll talk to me about things sometimes when you won't talk to her. She said you said you were going on a trip, but wouldn't tell her where," Edward said as he took a seat on Peter's desk chair.

"I got a short term job offer," he admitted to Ted. "It's not like I'm always going to be your apprentice, and you're not going to want me tagging along with you forever, so I've been working on making my own contacts."

"Doing what?"

" The what is need to know," he said, looking at Ted, who seemed pleased at that part of his response. You didn't give out that kind of information to someone who wasn't involved in the job. "But I can at least give you that it's a job for Rafael's group."

"Then I can tell your mother that the people you're working for will treat you fairly," Ted said.

There was another knock at his door, and Becca stuck her head into the room without waiting for a response.

"Hey strong guys. Could one of you open up a jar for me?" she said.

"I've got it, Bec," he said as he held out his hands for the jar.

"Good. Seems like with all the time you spend at the gym these days, you could do one small useful thing as a result."

"What do you mean, oh beloved sister? I'm here to cater to your every need," he said as he popped the lid on the jar of olives. "Though I'll never understand wanting to eat something that's like frog brains."

"They aren't frog brains," she said as she took back the jar and set it on his dresser. Careful not to spill brine on the wood, she plucked five large pitted olives out of the jar, sticking one on each of the fingers of her left hand and waving that hand in his direction as she spoke. "They're for reminding you that I'll get you both my pretties, you and that little dog too."

"Remind you this," he said as he threw a pillow at her, aiming low for her kneecaps in order to make sure he didn't hit the jar as well.

She laughed as she retreated out of his room with the jar, eating the olives off her fingertips as she did.

Ted made sure the door was firmly closed before he continued.

"So how did this happen?"

"I've stayed in touch with a couple different people in St. Louis since then." Since the time he had gotten himself ass deep in supernatural politics and somehow survived it all. "Claudia got in touch with me, and said they needed a human that was about my age for a job, said that she had heard through Anita that I was getting into the business, and wanted to know if I was interested."

"You know that can be how they start to recruit someone?" Ted said.

"Yeah, and I told Claudia I wasn't interested in anything very, very permanent. She said it was going to be nice to be working with someone who was only wanting a job instead of working with someone who was mostly looking for a way in." For all that he was drawn to the monsters' world and its mix of comfort and comforting terror, he had no desire to stay there all the time.

"That's one less thing I have to worry about on behalf of your mother," Ted said. "Did they give you a time frame?"

"I should be back home in less than a month, but it could go longer, and I don't want her to worry if it does. How do I tell her that?"

"You tell her ten weeks, and then if it's less, she gets to get excited that you've come home early."

"So that rule is to always pad the estimated time of return big time?" And if it ran short and Mom wasn't expecting him home again anytime soon, maybe he could call Rachel and see if he could stop off in Las Vegas for a few days on the way back to New Mexico.

"Always. I don't want her to unnecessarily take the precautions I've told her to take if she thinks I've gone missing for good." There were people that Mom was supposed to contact if Ted ever just vanished. Those people were a different group than the people Peter was supposed to contact if he thought Edward was gone. Considering what he knew of the people on his list, Peter had felt honored to be the one trusted with that particular set of names.

"Any other advice for me?"

"It's too late for anything new to really sink in to the point it's automatic. From this point on, all you can do is to keep your guard up, and remember what you've learned and what you've trained for."

"And I feel like you've trained me well, even when I was a total ass to you in the beginning."

"When it became more and more clear where your life was headed, I had to do the best I could to teach you how to survive along that path." His face was fully Edward's face now, though he seemed oddly sentimental in a way Peter had never really seen from Edward before.

"Thanks," he stood up, crossed his bedroom, and gave the guy who could be one of the scariest people Peter knew a hug.

"You're welcome," Edward said. He knew it was Edward from the awkwardness in the return hug.

"I do have a favor to ask. Can I get a clean weapon from you?" He had three different guns in the safe under his bed, but he had fired them during his work with Ted Forrester, and someone could make a link between then and now with a ballistics check.

"I can do that for you," Edward said. For all that it was brief, Peter caught the question that flickered in his eyes. He wanted to tell him that it shouldn't be that bad. Based on what he had been told, it was probably more of a precaution than he needed for the job, but it wasn't a bad idea to get into the habit of being very, very careful. But he didn't because Ted wasn't supposed to know details. "What name do you want the registration under?"

"I'm using Peter Evans in this trip." He couldn't come close to matching Ted's collection of alternate identities, but he had built up a few different names.

"I'll do that. In exchange, you need to take care of yourself out there, and not end up with a result that would cause your mother grief."

"I'll try my best," he promised.

"Come by my house before you go, and I'll have the gun for you then."

Ted left his room after that, presumably headed to make his report to Mom. When the door closed, Peter went back to packing his bag. He had every intention of keeping his word to Ted in that regard. If he screwed up, that would leave one fewer person in the world to keep his family and friends safe from all the different kinds of monsters out there.


End file.
